


left in the dust

by JamtheDingus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beer Run, Christmas Party, Drunken Shenanigans, Kissing, M/M, heavy on the party and light on the christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 21:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17149802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamtheDingus/pseuds/JamtheDingus
Summary: Shiro rolls the window down to let him in, and Keith climbs in like a spider on the hunt for its next victim.His hair is shoved out of the way in a half bun, where most of the hair has fallen out past the hair tie because it was much too loose, but a good portion was still up in a sort of half-ponytail look.It was messy, and all Keith, so Shiro loved it.---Shiro and Keith go on a beer run.





	left in the dust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tootsonnewts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tootsonnewts/gifts).



> toots i know you’ve been workin hard this year <3 so this is just a tiny little thank u for all the work you’ve done and i hope you’re having a good holiday!
> 
> merry christmas!

The rumble of the engine soothes the knives stabbing into Shiro’s nerves. He sinks into the plush leather of the seats, gripping the steering wheel tight with one hand. The other hovers over the gear shift, and the lights reflect off his prosthesis enough that it’s almost like a mini-disco ball in the palm of his hand, if disco-balls were only red.

Keith slides over the front hood of the car, less to do a bit and more because the garage was too stuffed full for him to walk around the thing like a normal person. He spills his drink as he goes, and it soaks into the tank top he has stuffed in his shorts. It's actually Shiro's shirt, which is why it hangs off of him so heavily, but it was a look. A dangerous one.

He sucks the rest of the beer down in one go, still half on top of the car. Every pose is illegal, in Shiro’s opinion. Even the buzzing, low light of the fluorescent bulb makes him glow like seraph come to purge every bad thing from the world.

Shiro rolls the window down to let him in, and Keith climbs in like a spider on the hunt for its next victim.

His hair is shoved out of the way in a half bun, where most of the hair has fallen out past the hair tie because it was much too loose, but a good portion was still up in a sort of half-ponytail look. Sweat had it plastered across his skin like veins, clinging tight in the humid air.

It was messy, and all Keith, so Shiro loved it. He reaches over to tuck some out of Keith’s eye, and Keith’s eyes glow back at him as he pulls away. The smell of the alcohol clings to him from eyelash to fingernail, but Shiro doesn’t mind much.

He pulls out of the garage with a honk, to scare away any other drunk party-goers unless they want to become part of the muffler. It wasn’t their car, so Shiro wouldn’t have done it— wouldn’t have done it even if it _was_ , actually— but the threat was enough.

Outside, Christmas lights nearly blind him. He wasn’t even drunk, but he swerves a bit on the road as he gathers his bearings. A giant, LED snowman waves goodbye at them as they pull out of the swanky neighborhood, and Keith tips his head back and laughs at Shiro’s frown for it.

The road is quiet as they shoot down the highway, besides the way they cut through the atmosphere and taint the sky with the smoke of the engine.

Shiro relaxes further, rolling down the rest of the windows to join Keith’s. Keith, who has already leaned himself out to feel the strong breeze. His eyes squeeze closed as Shiro ups the pace, pushing at the speed limit, but his lips split with the grin it produces.

He’s drunk as hell, that Keith. He’d downed every drink that had been shoved Shiro’s way, because Shiro was weak when it came to social drinking, and because one of them had to drive back home by the time the party would end.

It was well past midnight, so Shiro is sure they won’t leave until the sun rises again. He reaches over to squeeze his palm against Keith’s thigh, keeping his eyes on the road. Keith leans out further, hooking the opposite leg atop the seat to get better leverage. When they pass by a billboard that says ‘honk if you love beef’, Keith yells as loud as he can and lifts a fist in victory. As if they’re gladiators riding to battle on fiery chariots, and Keith is ready to win.

The music, turned low from the prior driver’s preference, has a nice beat that Shiro can feel vibrate his skin when the bassline gets heavier. He reaches over to turn it up at the same time Keith does. Keith grabs his fingers and tangles them like shredded twine, and cranks it up as far as it’ll go until the ridges of the knob scratch uncomfortably against Shiro’s skin.

He laughs anyway, and focuses on the road. Turns out the driver felt as strongly about bass as Shiro did, because the car growls along with every deep note. It shakes them, and probably would get the police called on them if everyone wasn’t so filled with holiday cheer or at home with their family.

Keith seems to 180 in mood at the feel of it tumbling him around like shoes in a dryer. He slips his upper half back into the car, snapping the seatbelt against his skin. His hips knock against the gear shift, enough that Shiro turns his lip up as he can only imagine the throbbing pain that must course through him.

Keith doesn’t react though, either from him being so tipsy or from sheer force of will. He still has one of his legs trapped underneath him, which seats him in a strange position. If it could be counted as being on beat, he wobbles along to the music, reaching up to grab onto the seat handle above him— the ones that everyone hangs their dry-cleaning from.

He’s switched from fierce, loud, and dangerous to quietly contemplative and drowsy all at once, and Shiro is enamored by it.

When they pull into the gas station, Keith has memorized the words to the repetitive chorus. He leans the chair back to swing his arm above his head, scratching at the ceiling as he sings. It’s not off-key, really, but half of it is jumbled and the other half is pitchy. Shiro dips over to kiss him mid-word, and Keith’s voice cuts off completely as he immediately tries to devour Shiro whole.

He grips at the back of his neck, keeping him down, and Shiro’s laugh gets lost in the swelling heat that was Keith’s magma soul. It’s not a messy kiss, not compared to a couple of their raunchier moods, but it takes a lot for Shiro to be able to pull back.

When Keith lets him go, it’s because he gets dizzy. Shiro can tell by the way his tight grip loosens to something unsure, and he murmurs a soft, confused sound as he squints at the beaming, flicking lights of the gas station. Shiro edges his thumb against the line of Keith’s lips, and leaves him with a much gentler kiss to the cheek.

“Be right back.” He says, voice drowned by the bass. He doesn’t cut the car off, but does turn the music down in case Keith passes out and he has to bang on the window to wake him up again.

He doesn’t leave until Keith locks the door, and Shiro has checked that no one can get to him. Then, he goes in to buy his weight worth in cheap beer, mediocre wine, and a hot chocolate just to be festive. Thanks, QuikTrip.

He pays with crumpled cash gathered from a couple of people from the party, and the change he gets back is wrong, but he doesn’t really care.

He does push back an extra dollar to buy a candy bar. Something that’s more crunch than candy, for Keith to chew on later.

When Shiro gets back to the car, Keith hasn’t passed out, but he has spread himself completely across the front seat. His legs take up where Shiro has evacuated, and his arms are outstretched behind him enough to take up both back seats.

When he knocks on the door, Keith hardly flinches. Just cracks an eye open and smacks his hand against the door to unlock it.

Shiro sets down a can of beer on top of the car to open the door, and Keith laughs out a slurred greeting in the form of, “Hey, babe.”

Shiro shoos his hands away and secures the drinks. He almost passes Keith the hot chocolate, but thinks better of it unless he wants Keith to have a burned chin.

When he finds his way to the front seat, he has to physically lift both of Keith’s legs by the thigh to make room for himself. Keith seems to enjoy the manhandling, flexing against Shiro’s touch.

Shiro kisses him for it, just because he can.

Back down the highway, Keith looks back specifically to spot the ‘honk if you like beef’ billboard again. He slaps his hand down on the horn and it only beeps twice, like a startled duck, but it amuses Keith endlessly, so Shiro doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind many things, when it comes to Keith.

Because the party was in a gated community, as rowdy as it was, Shiro has to lean himself out the window to ring himself back in. All he has to do is mention the beer for the owner to eagerly crack the gate, but he gets distracted by Keith’s hand groping him on the curve of his ass.

“Can I help you?” Shiro asks, amused, as they roll past the entrance. He’s basically sitting on Keith’s hand, probably crushing it, but Keith has found a home for it in Shiro’s back pocket and he didn’t seem to want to leave it.

“Mm.” Keith grunts. Then grunts again, “Hrmph.”

“Alright, then.”

Shiro pulls into the driveway, gravel crunching under tires much like bones in a grinder. He feels himself tense again as they get swarmed, but Keith is there.

Keith shoves his door open, clocking someone in the gut with it. He slides across the hood again, not out of necessity but from muscle-memory, and drags Shiro out from the front seat with a hand to his neck and a kiss along his bicep. Just because that’s the first place Keith can reach.

The people raid the car for the extra alcohol, and someone claps Shiro on the shoulder in thanks, but they’re soon left alone in the ringing aftermath. The keys are still in the ignition, leaving a pleasant rumble under hand as Shiro crowds Keith against the car, but the music has been cut off as not to clash with the music inside.

Keith hooks his ankles together behind Shiro’s back and claims the soft skin of his neck with a firm touch of his palm. When he leans back, he’s entirely slack as if every inch of him has been reduced to jelly. "I got ya."

Shiro supports him, laughing all the while as Keith tugs him down to lay flat against the flat trunk.

The hands leave his neck, having stained it with the heat that Keith’s body swathed itself in like boiled tongs, and reach for the stars.

Keith’s eyes reflect each and every sparkle that decorated the sky, including the ones that shined and bounced off of that gigantic snowman.

When he looks back at Shiro, his head lolls to the side to get a good look at him. They must look ridiculous, tangled with one another instead of mingling with the roaring party not ten feet away from them. Then again, that was probably what parties like these were for.

“I’m drunk.” Keith whispers, against Shiro’s skin. It startles another laugh from him that night.

“I realized.” Shiro admits, lips curved deep with how strong his smile overtakes him. “Thanks for keeping me safe, firebee.”

“Mmlove you.” Keith says, fingers passing over every inch of Shiro’s face, just to feel. Shiro laughs again, again, again, and gets a couple of Keith’s fingers in his mouth for the trouble, but, like he said, he didn’t mind much.

He lifts Keith up, steadying the off-kilter weight by keeping both his hands firmly supporting Keith’s back, and waddles with him back to the party.

They pass by the mistletoe taped to the front door, and Keith grips onto the doorframe to stop them just to kiss Shiro silly, just like he’s done the entire night when they even stray in the general vicinity of it.

Shiro gives just as good as he gets, and Keith ends up whispering soft ‘love you’s and one ‘merry Christmas’ against his neck as Shiro totes him somewhere less rowdy.

“Merry Christmas, baby.” Shiro shoves his way through the party, back first so no one knocks into Keith.

They end up in the kitchen, because people have migrated away from it since the party has been going on for so long. He sets Keith down on the counter, but lets him cling a little longer.

Someone passes by, and passes them a drink as they go. Keith snatches it up before Shiro can refuse, but Shiro is quick to steal it back and toss it in the sink. “I think that’s enough. Let me take you home?”

“My Prince.” Keith kicks his legs up, eyes falling shut as he knocks his head against Shiro’s. It winds them both, the sudden clang of bone against bone, but they both start laughing at the same time.

 

The hot chocolate stays untasted, cooling in the cup holder of that car they didn’t own, and Shiro only remembers it when he’s cuddling Keith in bed, a couple hours later after rinsing him off and stuffing him in warm, holiday-themed pajamas.

He kisses along Keith’s neck, and tastes the heat of it anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> they do end up forgetting about that candy bar tho, and it melts in that person's car and stains the floor. rip.
> 
> MERRY CHRISTMAS ASHLEY!!!!!


End file.
